Technology

AI can’t make good video game worlds yet, and it might never be able to

Published

4 weeks ago

February 15, 2026

AI can’t make good video game worlds yet, and it might never be able to

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Long before the generative AI explosion, video game developers made games that could generate their own worlds. Think of titles like Minecraft or even the original 1980 Rogue that is the basis for the term “roguelike”; these games and many others create worlds on the fly with certain rules and parameters. Human developers painstakingly work to make sure the worlds their games can create are engaging to explore and filled with things to do, and at their best, these types of games can be replayable for years because of how the environments and experiences can feel novel every single time you play.

But just as other creative industries are pushing back against an AI slop future, generative AI is coming for video games, too. Though it may never catch up with the best of what humans can make now.

Generative AI in video games has become a lightning rod, with gamers getting mad about in-game slop and half of developers thinking that generative AI is bad for the industry.

Big video game companies are jumping into the murky waters of AI anyway. PUBG maker Krafton is turning into an “AI First” game company, EA is partnering with Stability AI for “transformative” game-making tools, and Ubisoft, as part of a major reorganization, is promising that it would be making “accelerated investments behind player-facing Generative AI.” The CEO of Nexon, which owns the company that made last year’s mega-hit Arc Raiders, put it perhaps the most ominously: “I think it’s important to assume that every game company is now using AI.” (Some indie developers disagree.)

The bigger game companies often pitch their commitments as a way to streamline and assist with game development, which is getting increasingly expensive. But adoption of generative AI tools is a potential threat to jobs in an industry already infamous for waves of layoffs.

Last month, Google launched Project Genie, an “early research prototype” that lets users generate sandbox worlds using text or image prompts that they can explore for 60 seconds. Right now, the tool is only available in the US to people who subscribe to Google’s $249.99-per-month AI Ultra plan.

Project Genie is powered by Google’s Genie 3 AI world model, which the company pitches as a “key stepping stone on the path to AGI” that can enable “AI agents capable of reasoning, problem solving, and real-world actions,” and Google says the model’s potential uses go “well beyond gaming.” But it got a lot of attention in the industry: It was the first real indication of how generative AI tools could be used for video game development, just as tools like DALL-E and OpenAI’s Sora showed what might be possible with AI-generated images and video.

In my testing, Project Genie was barely able to generate even remotely interesting experiences. The “worlds” don’t let users do much except wander around using arrow keys. When the 60 seconds are over, you can’t do anything with what you generated except download a recording of what you did, meaning you also can’t plug in what you generated into a traditional video game engine.

Sure, Project Genie did let me generate terrible unauthorized Nintendo knockoffs (seemingly based off of the online videos Genie 3 is trained on), which raised a lot of familiar concerns about copyright and AI tools. But they weren’t even in the same universe of quality as the worlds in a handcrafted Nintendo game. The worlds were silent, the physics were sloppy, and the environments felt rudimentary.

The day after Project Genie’s announcement, stock prices of some of the biggest video game companies, including Take-Two, Roblox, and Unity, took a dip. That resulted in a little damage control. Take-Two president Karl Slatoff, for example, pushed back strongly on Genie in an earnings call a few days later, arguing that Genie isn’t a threat to traditional games yet. “Genie is not a game engine,” he said, noting that technology like it “certainly doesn’t replace the creative process,” and that, to him, the tool looks more like “procedurally generated interactive video at this point.” (The stock prices ticked back up in the days after.)

Google will almost certainly continue improving its Genie world models and tools to generate interactive experiences. It’s unclear if it will want to improve the experiences as games or if it will instead focus on finding ways for Genie to assist with its aspirational march toward AGI.

However, other leaders of AI companies are already pushing for interactive AI experiences. xAI’s Elon Musk recently claimed that “real-time” and “high-quality” video games that are “customized to the individual” will be available “next year,” and in December, he said that building an “AI gaming studio” is a “major project” for xAI. (Like with many of Musk’s claims, take his predictions and timelines with a grain of salt.) Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, who is now pushing AI as the new social media after the company cut jobs in its metaverse group, envisions a future where people create a game from a prompt and share it to people in their feeds. Even Roblox, a gaming company, is pitching how creators will be able to use AI world models and prompts to generate and change in-game worlds in real time, something that it calls “real-time dreaming.”

But even in the most ambitious view where AI technology is feasibly able to generate worlds that are as responsive and interesting to explore as a video game that runs locally on a home console, PC, or your smartphone, there’s a lot more that goes into making a video game than just creating a world. The best games have engaging gameplay, include interesting things to do, and feature original art, sound, writing, and characters. And it takes human developers sometimes years to make sure all of the elements work together just right.

AI technology isn’t yet ready to generate games, and whoever thinks it might be is fooling themselves. But AI-generated video is still bad, and it was still used to make a bunch of bad ads for the Super Bowl, so tech companies are probably still going to put a lot of effort toward games made with generative AI. In an already unstable industry, even the idea that AI tools could rival what humans can make might have massive ramifications down the line.

But the complexity of games is different from AI video, which has improved considerably in a short period of time but has fewer variables to account for. AI game-making tools will almost certainly improve, but the results might never close the gap from what humans can make.

In a long X post, Unity CEO Matthew Bromberg argues that world models aren’t a risk, but a “powerful accelerator.”
While the video game industry probably shouldn’t feel threatened by AI world models just yet, generative AI tools will continue to be controversial in game development. Even Larian Studios, beloved for games like Baldur’s Gate 3, isn’t immune to backlash.
Steam requires that developers disclose when their games use generative AI to generate content, but in a recent change, developers don’t have to disclose if they used “AI powered tools” in their game development environments.
Some games, like the text-based Hidden Door and Amazon’s Snoop Dogg game on its Luna cloud gaming service, are embracing generative AI as a core aspect of the game.

NYU games professor Joost van Dreunen has a take on the situation around Project Genie.
Scientific American has a great explanation of how world models work.

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Jay Peters

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Technology

One of Grammarly’s ‘experts’ is suing the company over its identity-stealing AI feature

Published

9 hours ago

March 12, 2026

Press Room

One of Grammarly’s ‘experts’ is suing the company over its identity-stealing AI feature

For months, Grammarly has been using the identities of real people (including us) for its “Expert Review” AI suggestions without getting their permission, and now it’s facing a lawsuit from one of the journalists included, as previously reported by Wired. The class-action complaint filed by journalist Julia Angwin on Wednesday alleges that Superhuman violated the “experts’” privacy and publicity rights by breaking laws against using someone’s identity for commercial purposes without their consent.

Angwin says she found out her identity was used by way of Casey Newton, who is also one of the experts that The Verge uncovered being used by Grammarly when we tested the feature this week. Several current Verge staff members popped up attached to Grammarly’s AI-generated suggestions, too, including editor-in-chief Nilay Patel.

CEO Shishir Mehrotra says that “the agent was designed to help users discover influential perspectives and scholarship relevant to their work, while also providing meaningful ways for experts to build deeper relationships with their fans. We hear the feedback and recognize we fell short on this. I want to apologize and acknowledge that we’ll rethink our approach going forward.”

Technology

Transfer photos from your phone to a hard drive

Published

9 hours ago

March 12, 2026

Press Room

Transfer photos from your phone to a hard drive

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If you own a smartphone, this moment eventually arrives. A warning pops up saying your storage is almost full. Photos stop syncing. Apps slow down. Suddenly, you are deleting emails, clearing messages and searching for anything that will free up space.

Many people hit this problem because their photos automatically back up to services like Google Photos or iCloud. Those services include a limited amount of free storage. Once it fills up, the solution is usually the same. Pay for more space.

Janice from Alabama recently wrote to us about this exact situation.

YOUR IPHONE HAS A HIDDEN FOLDER EATING UP STORAGE SPACE WITHOUT YOU EVEN KNOWING

“My Google storage of 15 GB is almost used up, according to Google. I need to get my photos off my phone. How can I do this and keep access to them? I don’t want to delete them. I continually empty trash, delete emails, etc. I understand that this is a common problem with Google users on Android phones. Their answer is to purchase more storage space. I don’t appreciate being held hostage by Google. Any suggestions?”
— Janice in Sylacauga, Alabama

Janice is far from alone. Millions of smartphone users face the same choice every year. Either pay monthly for more storage or move their photos somewhere else. The good news is that you can store your photos on a hard drive you own, keep access to them anytime and avoid ongoing subscription fees. Let’s walk through the easiest ways to do it.

Smartphone users can free up storage by transferring photos to a computer and external hard drive instead of paying for more cloud space. (Yusuf Coskun via Getty Images)

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Method 1: Transfer photos from your phone to a computer

The simplest approach is to first copy your photos to a computer. After that, you can move them to an external hard drive.

For iPhones

Apple devices use a slightly different process. Instead of opening the phone like a storage device, you import photos through the Photos app on your computer.

On a Mac

Connect your iPhone to your Mac using a USB cable (Lightning or USB-C, depending on your iPhone model)
Unlock your iPhone if it is locked
If prompted, tap Trust This Computer on your iPhone
Open the Photos app on your Mac
Select your iPhone under Devices in the sidebar
Choose the photos or videos you want to transfer
Click Import Selected or Import All New Items

The photos will download to your Mac’s photo library.

Another option: Use iCloud Photos

If you are signed into iCloud and iCloud Photos is enabled on your iPhone, your photos may already be syncing automatically. In that case, you can simply open Photos on your Mac or visit iCloud Photos in a browser on your desktop to access and download them without connecting your phone.

HOW TO HIDE PHOTOS ON YOUR IPHONE AND ANDROID FROM SNOOPS

With a USB cable and a hard drive, users can protect thousands of photos while reclaiming valuable phone storage. (Jun via Getty Images)

For Android phones

Settings may vary depending on your Android phone’s manufacturer

Connect your phone to your computer using a USB cable
On your phone, choose File Transfer when prompted
Open File Explorer on Windows or Finder on Mac
Locate your phone under connected devices
Open the DCIM or Pictures folder
Copy the photos you want to save

Once copied, paste the files into a folder on your computer. This step gives you a full backup before moving them to a drive.

On Windows

Connect your iPhone with a USB cable
Unlock your phone and tap Trust This Computer
Open the Photos app on Windows
Choose Import from a USB device

Windows will copy your photos directly to your computer.

Method 2: Move the photos to an external hard drive

Once your photos are on your computer, transferring them to a hard drive is quick.

Plug your external hard drive into your computer
Open the drive in Finder or File Explorer
Drag your photo folder onto the drive
Wait for the files to finish copying

Now your photos are stored safely on a device you control. External drives can hold tens of thousands of photos, depending on the size of the drive. Check out our best external drives article at Cyberguy.com.

BEST WAYS TO SAVE YOUR PHONE’S PHOTOS BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE

Moving photos from an iPhone or Android device to a hard drive helps preserve memories without ongoing subscription fees. (Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

Method 3: Transfer photos directly to a USB flash drive

If you prefer skipping the computer, some flash drives plug directly into smartphones. These drives typically include:

USB-C connectors for Android phones
Lightning connectors for older iPhones
USB-C connectors for iPhone 15 and newer models

After connecting the drive, open the companion app that comes with it. From there, you can move photos directly from your phone to the drive. This option works well when you need to free up space quickly. Be sure to explore our best flash drive recommendations at Cyberguy.com.

Method 4: Keep your photos organized

After transferring photos to a hard drive, spend a few minutes organizing them.

Create folders by:

Hard drives are reliable, but keeping a second backup ensures your memories stay protected if one drive ever fails.

Why this approach saves money

Cloud storage can feel inexpensive at first. Over time, the monthly charges add up. An external hard drive often costs less than a year or two of cloud storage fees. After that, the storage is essentially free. Even better, your photos stay under your control rather than sitting only on a company server.

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Kurt’s key takeaways

Janice asked a question many people quietly wonder about. Do we really need to keep paying companies just to store our own memories? Fortunately, the answer is no. With a simple cable and an affordable hard drive, you can free up phone storage, keep every photo you want and avoid ongoing storage fees. Once you try it, the process becomes fast and routine.

So, here is something worth thinking about. If your phone holds years of photos and videos, should those memories live only on a company’s cloud server or somewhere you fully control? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.

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Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.

Technology

Microsoft’s next Xbox, Project Helix, won’t reach alpha until 2027

Published

21 hours ago

March 11, 2026

Press Room

Microsoft’s next Xbox, Project Helix, won’t reach alpha until 2027

We’re here at the 2026 Game Developers Conference, where Microsoft “VP of Next Generation” Jason Ronald is talking about a topic near and dear to many gamers’ hearts: the future of Xbox. Ronald says the next Xbox, codenamed Project Helix, will have a custom AMD chip with “an order of magnitude increase in raytracing performance” up to and including path tracing, and a next-gen version of AMD’s FSR upscaling technology that relies on machine learning and includes frame generation — which can improve the perceived smoothness of a game by imagining new frames between existing ones.

But don’t expect that next Xbox soon: Microsoft will begin sending out “alpha versions” of Project Helix to developers in 2027, Ronald revealed here at GDC.

Details about Project Helix.

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

Ronald also confirmed that Xbox and Windows are getting closer together, beyond the fact that Project Helix will play PC games too. “PC is becoming an increasingly important part of Xbox. We’re bringing the best of Xbox to Windows itself,” says Ronald.

Microsoft is bringing the Xbox mode that originally shipped with the Xbox Ally handheld to more Windows computers “to select markets starting in April,” as well as Advanced Shader Delivery, which precompiles shaders so you can download them alongside a game or its updates, instead of having to wait when you launch a title.

Ronald says the Microsoft team’s been doing a lot of work behind the scenes to make the Xbox mode “feel distinctly Xbox” and feel the same as you migrate between devices and cloud. He says gamers play 3-5 games at any one time on average, and you should be able to pick up and play whether you’re on console, PC, or cloud.

As we spotted outside the keynote, Microsoft wants game developers to just build once for both Windows and Xbox, instead of building twice for both. It’s creating a unified development environment where “The vast majority of code that your game runs on Xbox is the exact same code that runs on other platforms,” says Ronald.

And while he isn’t promising all games will be this way, Ronald suggests that you won’t have to buy those games multiple times, too: the already-existing Xbox Play Anywhere program lets you buy once and “play on any screen,” he says. The catalog of Xbox Play Anywhere games now has more than 1,500 titles, Ronald says.

As part of the 25th anniversary of Xbox, the the game preservation team will also re-release an unspecified number of older Xbox titles under its Game Preservation program, Ronald says. “As one of the largest publishers in the industry, we feel a deep responsibility to preserve games from the past.” And he hints that “some of our most iconic first-party franchises are returning this year.”

A slide from an Xbox GDC 2026 presentation showing games that are part of game preservation.

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

The news follows Microsoft’s recent announcement of the codename for its next-generation console, Project Helix, which the company says will play both console and PC games. That announcement about Helix was made by new Xbox boss Asha Sharma, who took over as Microsoft’s gaming CEO in February. Former Xbox boss Phil Spencer is retiring, and former Xbox president Sarah Bond, who had been seen as a potential successor to Spencer, also announced her departure.

Last year, Bond hinted that the next-generation Xbox would be more like a PC and noted that it would be a “a very premium, very high-end curated experience.” In her first memo since taking over Xbox, Sharma promised a “renewed commitment to Xbox starting with console,” and in her post about Helix, Sharma said the console would “lead in performance.” This week, Sharma also posted a picture of the original Xbox prototype, which Microsoft is showing at the GDC Festival of Gaming. We’ve got pictures.

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